Another day, another accusation between Sonni Pacheco and Jeremy Renner. They split in late 2014 after less than a year of marriage, and after Sonni gave birth to their daughter Ava. Since then, it’s been nothing but competing court filings, messy custody battles, arguments about child support payments and of course, accusations about affairs, violence, guns and more. Over time, I’ve come to side more with Sonni, especially since we can see the kind of emotional abuse Renner has tried to inflict on her in broad daylight through court filings. Well, now it’s time for Renner to formally accuse Sonni of misappropriating Ava’s child support money.
Jeremy Renner is accusing his ex-wife Sonni Pacheco of misappropriating their daughter’s trust fund for her own personal use. In court documents filed last Tuesday and obtained by PEOPLE, the actor, 49, alleged Pacheco, 29, had transferred nearly $50,000 in less than two years from their 7-year-old daughter Ava’s trust fund account.
“In an email to Mr. Renner’s business manager, Jeffrey Jacobs, dated April 23, 2019, [Pacheco] admitted transferring funds from the minor’s trust account to her personal account in violation of the Court’s Order, stating: ‘The money transfers to my bank were to keep my afloat/provide [the minor] Christmas presents/birthday gift bags and essentials for her bday party – after all my savings were spent on lawyers/child custody evaluator,'” Renner’s court documents asserted. Pacheco allegedly made another transfer that same month from Ava’s trust fund to her personal checking account for an amount over $10,000.
“[Pacheco told] Jacobs in an email eight months later, ‘Please note the number of $10,701.40 was taken out of this account to pay my property taxes for 6 months. Once again this year like the past years, mine and [A.R.]’s savings have been drained from attorney fees,'” Renner’s filing alleged.
In a statement made exclusively to PEOPLE, Pacheco responded to Renner’s allegations, saying, “I am sick of being continually bullied, having my name slandered, and the truth muted. Anyone, who is a parent knows that the most important thing in the world is their child’s health and safety,” she said. “Over the years it’s hard to fathom what I’ve seen and what people have told me they’ve seen in regards to Jeremy’s disturbing actions while our child is in his care. Unfortunately, these actions have landed me in a position to need to retain legal support, undergo a child custody evaluation, and now have a plan parent coordinator,” Pacheco added.
“It is hard for me to stay muted because, after all this time, money, and energy spent putting safety measures in place to keep our daughter safe while once again in Jeremy’s care, these measures are still being violated as of today.”
I have a question for all of the legal-beagle Celebitches out there: couldn’t the argument be made that some child support money could go towards mortgage payments? I mean, that *is* supporting a child, making sure the child has a roof over her head and whatnot. Same with using child support to buy Christmas presents? And why is Renner constantly auditing Sonni? At what point does it become financial abuse? Maybe I’m completely in the wrong here, but it feels like Jeremy Renner is mad that he has to pay Sonni. Sonni is mad that Jeremy leaves loaded guns around the house, that he threatened to kill her and that he’s likely endangering their daughter.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet (now Backgrid) and Getty.
You nailed it: financial abuse. Auditing her to embarrass her and give even the optics of gold digging. And drain her personal accounts for attorney fees so he has control over her. Jeremy Renner is trash.
Considering our overwhelming cultural misogyny, it doesn’t take much to be forever put in the gold digging wh*re category. And as others mention, I’ve always gotten a bad feeling about this guy too. Long before this. He looks mean, very mean eyes. And unstable. And I think he was doing promotional tours completely blasted out of his mind, and I’m one who believes my own eyes.
Didn’t Ted Casablanca(s?) basically get fired for outing Jeremy Renner? I seem to recall that an unredacted/nicknamed article went public and everyone freaked out because there were already rumors about Jeremy and Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible.
Soon after, Jeremy starts dating women publicly, pops out a kid and is now acting like a total jackass to the mother of his child. If he has guns lying around the house, he should lose unsupervised visitation privileges.
I really don’t think this is an audit, she has used court protected funds. From the various settlement details, she gets $13K a month and a yearly lump sum which depends on his income for the year. If his total payments to her go over $356K in a year, the extra goes into a account or trust, I don’t know what it would be called legally. She can do whatever she likes with the $356K, but the trust is only for Ava’s education and anything left over goes to Ava. She has admitted to spending Ava’s trust fund and he is asking for that money to be controlled by a third party so it doesn’t happen again.
She had no right to the funds in the trust. She receives a 5 figure monthly child support payment which is, in my opinion, quite a bit, & this is egregious. I don’t care about either of these people but anyone violating a court protected trust is in serious legal trouble in all 50 states.
Thank you for clearly spelling this out. It makes perfect sense.
Jeremy Renner wouldn’t be a pauper if he didn’t make a film a year. The man was part of two major franchises–Mission Impossible and Marvel’s Avengers. He has recently released a music CD and let’s not forget his real estate business with his business partner/housemate.
He’s seems to me like a control freak who drags his ex-wife to court every chance he gets in an attempt to keep her cash poor, paying legal fees, and therefore manageble. Didn’t Sonni say in one of their legal battles that he has her passport and refuses to give it to her? Good lawyers aren’t cheap, especially in Los Angeles. What else would she hire to go up against his legal team? In a few years Ava will be old enough to speak about the things that go on in her dad’s house. And it could be that Sonni’s “What did you do at daddy’s house?” is how she gets information now about such things like guns left lying around.
I have always gotten a bad vibe from him, even before all this stuff. I’m sorry this is so messy, mostly because of the damage this is doing to their daughter. It’s terrible to have to grow up like this with both your parents fighting all the time.
I really feel for her. If Jeremy Renner is behaving the way she describes (and I do believe her!), she had a duty as a mother to try to keep their child safe and I’m sure his legal team made sure it was an expensive fight. If there is a court order specifying what can or can’t be done regarding transfers from the trust, I’m sure Jeremy was salivating at the thought of her violating a court order so he can continue their fighting. And her lawyer should have steered her in the right direction to avoid this. I’m not sure if the trust is supposed to be for the child when they grow up or used as child support? Usually when I think of a trust fund, I thought it’s basically savings for when the child comes of age? Anyway, as far as child support goes, it all goes into one financial pot and as long as the child is happy, healthy, with a roof over their head, etc I believe child support doesn’t have to be accounted for. If someone has a problem with how the child support is “spent” then they better have grounds to take custody because the other parent is neglecting the child. Otherwise, it’s obvious that the child support was used in some capacity to care for the child!
It galls me. He should not have all of this money for these legal teams. He’s a crap nothing who scored by being cast as Hawkeye and as Sheldon Cooper says “sure, Hawkeye’s an Avenger, but nobody ever says help me Hawkeye”.
Renner even made me hate the character.
@darla…he isn’t Sheldon Cooper. That is Jim Parson
Well, he isn’t “nothing”, he received two Oscar nominations prior to his Avengers gig.
She mentions Sheldon because he is a fan of the comics and he “says” that Hawkeye is a mediocre avenger, which Renner was lucky to be cast as.
@Ennie…thx, I’m not an Avenger person. I remember he was the bad cop in S.W.A.T from forever ago
I actually think he’s a good actor, which bothers me because I REALLY dislike him, I’ve always gotten a bad vibe from him. But he’s better as a character actor than a leading man, for sure.
When I worked at a crisis center one of things I noticed was how often a lot of abusive behaviors started after a woman decides to leave, I’m sure Renner had absuive behaviors aplenty while they were together and when he lost the ability to put that on her it made him even more angry.
So many of the women I talked to left a situation because they noticed it getting bad and then the abuse really came. Men don’t want to pay alimony or child support and oftentimes that leads to destructive and absuive behaviors. I saw men file lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit about how the woman in the relationship wasted money until they had no more money to continue to fight their legal battle. Its a control tactic.
The other thing here is that clearly Renner is auditing so often because he WANTS to take her to court, he wants to financially drain her and put her in a bad spot.
She has taken him to court a lot. I think I am correct in saying that the only time he has initiated anything related to the setting up of the trust for Ava and now asking that it be controlled by a third party. Basically, money only goes into this trust once he has payed at least $356K in child support in one year – she can do what she wants with that money. She can access the money for anything educational for Ava and the rest goes the kid.
I think he’s trash, and this whole custody thing has been pretty gross. Especially since it’s still happening.
But trust funds are usually money set aside for the kid to go to college, or to receive on a certain birthday, correct? And if there are specific stipulations for her not to move the money from the trust fund to her own account, then it’s not child support. It’s money set aside for the kid that is not supposed to be accessed by either parent, I would imagine. Child support is typically supposed to be paid directly to the parent who is supposed to receive it. So it doesn’t matter if she spent all of her money on lawyers – the trust fund money isn’t supposed to pay for property taxes, it’s to help the daughter as an adult (provided that this is how they’ve set up the trust fund).
Parents misappropriating funds that are supposed to be set aside for their kids happens regularly, that’s why there are certain stipulations and types of accounts that can’t be accessed whenever they want. It’s unclear if that’s what’s happening here, though, because these two have made so many accusations about each other that it’s just clear they hate each other and it doesn’t seem to actually be about their daughter at all.
@Alissa I agree with you as well. It seems that people are conflating two separate issues. Sonni’s complaint against Renner and his complaints regarding Ava’s trust. Both issues are valid and aren’t mutually exclusive. From what I remember, the funds from the trust come the money Renner makes when he has a particularly fruitful year on top of his regular payments to Sonni. Now it seems that the trust is nearly empty. I don’t know why people think it is unfair of him to question that, considering he’ll have to build the trust again.
Trust funds can be set up to be a little more flexible and provide for need, such as hospital bills, tuition, clothes, other necessary expenses. However, from the except here, $10,000 was spent on real estate taxes, which, arguably are for keeping a necessary roof over Ava’s head, but the other $40,000 doesn’t seem tied to that and the excuse of birthday gift bags is really weird. What was in those gift bags that was costing thousands of dollars? Mom should be getting or making birthday presents out of her own money, not Ava’s. My sympathies are with Ava.
Years ago a co-worker was talking about her son’s birthday party. And freely admitted she took the money that was given to him by friends and family. To cover the cost of the party. I gave her shit for that. She got all offended. That was his money not hers. It’s your child you pay for the party. The money isn’t for expenses. That doesn’t sit well with me either. I hope Ava makes it ok and will grow up somehow well adjusted.
I think the argument is that money only goes into that trust once he has paid $356K in one year, which should be plenty for essentials. The trust was flexible, but only to be used by the mother for the child’s education, extra-curricular activities and child-care.
The only person I feel for is the child.
Her parents are not acting in her best interest with the constant fighting.
I would hope a judge would order them into therapy.
Yup. Not that any child is entitled to an inheritance, but the amount of money wasted on this back and forth between the parents is disgusting.
Eventually she will be old enough to Google.
I hope she has a good therapist.
He’s the worst, and it does sound like he’s trying to financially abuse her.
But unfortunately if they did have an agreement that account was not to be touched except for certain things, she may have violated it. And I don’t think the courts are going to consider Christmas presents and birthday party gift bags to be emergencies.
Birthday party gift bags that cost thousands apparently.
All this time I have been doing birthday gift bags wrong … I was including a can of playdough and a chocolate bar.
See Pineapple, what you have to do is bedazzle that can of playdough. Slam some swarvoski crystals all over that can!
Surely the child’s trust for her future isn’t there to finance…birthday party grab bags?
Team no one but Ava – I see a lot of toxic behavior all over these two.
Okay so he’s trash but she’s definitely not legally entitled to take money from that trust fund for basically anything. Here’s why:
1. Renner pays Sonni child support to the tune of $30,000 per month, that money is tax free and for expenses related to her daughter. It is not meant to be a substitute for a job or paycheck for Sonni, it is meant to help fund a somewhat more equal lifestyle when Ava is at Sonni’s vs with Jeremy who has more financial means. Basically it levels the playing field so the child’s life is less dramatically altered across two households.
2. I don’t know if they have an agreement in place on alimony payments (the argument would be that Sonni became accustomed to a certain lifestyles with Jeremy) but if so that would be exclusively her money that doesn’t need to be spent on anything Ava related.
3. The trust fund is for Ava as an adult and neither parent should have access to it. Per their custody agreement, he owes Sonni up to $200,000 per year in child support, anything exceeding that up to 2.3% of his maximum income goes into the trust for Ava. The trust is in ADDITION to the child support, not in place of.
Jeremy Renner sounds like a complete ass, but the court isn’t obligating him to pay Sonni’s attorney fees so she needs to get a job and leave that trust alone.
I never thought I would be commenting here to say anything mildly supportive of Jeremy Renner (I’m a usual lurker), but this is not financial abuse. The money in Ava’s trust that’s being referred to here is money set aside for the child *on top of* the monthly child support received by Sonni and it’s not supposed to be used by anyone other than the child herself once she reached a certain age. If you look back at old stories about these two on this very site, I believe this was discussed in detail. If Sonni is using those funds, that’s a problem – particularly in light of the court order.
Also, as an aside, I know a lot of people on this site are Team Sonni, but as a family law lawyer myself, I can’t help but question the fact that she’s filed multiple motions asking the court to restrict Jeremy’s parenting time and involved at least one custody evaluator (those people are licensed clinical psychologists), but the parenting schedule has remained the same. Frankly, I don’t care for either of these parents. They hate one another and seem to use any excuse to file something in court to “punish” the other. She gets more sympathy because of the nature of her allegations (plus Jeremy Renner is just so easy to dislike), but she’s just as bad as he is, IMO.
Sorry for the novel….
Yeah I think they both seem terrible and their kid seems to come well behind their vendetta against each other in order of importance to them.
My take is that she needs to be earning her own money and not living off child support. And her child support payments are equal to a large salary so blowing through them and tapping into the trust is fiscally irresponsible.
If it is true that she has valid concerns about the safety of her child with him (I don’t trust what either of them says tbh and they both rub me the wrong way; but yeah, he’s always seemed unlikeable and sometimes high to me), she still needs to budget and work out what she can and can’t afford to spend on lawyers – like anyone else would. She can’t use her child’s trust as a back-up option when she goes over her budget. And 40k on Christmas presents and party bags is a weak excuse – that is some people’s entire annual income. Obviously he can out-spend her on lawyers, so maybe she needs to look to mediation for at least some of her problems with him.
Agree with all your points. She files all these motions with accusations. The court and child protective services look carefully at every accusation and still the court orders don’t change, which tells me the child advocates aren’t seeing what she’s claiming. And she needs to get a job and start paying some of her own bills, not using her kid’s money to support herself. We already know from her previous filings that he is court ordered to pay for school and day care five days a week so it’s not that she has to struggle to afford daycare.
Thanks for your expert opinion. I have a problem with Sonni dipping into the trust for property taxes and birthday bags. I don’t care if Jeremy is a dbag. That trust is Ava’s. Not a piggy bank for mommy when she is broke.
Sonni admits to taking Ava’s trust fund money and people are hurling out “financial abuse”. I don’t think it’s fair to put this all on Renner especially since Sonni is the one always going to the courts first. Renner typically only flies in response to Sonni. Her claims against Renner can be valid as well and the court will makes its judgment.
I think it’s both – he’s constantly trying to financially abuse her (the first week of the shutdown he was crying poor to the courts to have support reduced) BUT I think she also abuses the system and apparently is taking money that isn’t hers.
Both of them need to just stop. This poor kid is caught in the middle, and old enough now to feel the tension.
Courts have been inundated with filings to reflect changes in circumstances due to the shutdown
Obviously I do not know truth here, but I do know the she does play games. There are examples over the last 5 years, but just focus on the what she says above. She says she has spent a fortune on lawyers to get safeguards put in place. She wasn’t after safeguards she was after sole physical and legal custody and her accusations would certainly have warranted it, but she didn’t get it. Here she seems to be justifying spending the child’s money because it resulted in safeguards. I think we are supposed to think that those safeguards relate to her accusations, but that isn’t necessarily the case. She is accusing him of a safeguarding violation today (yesterday), but how would she know what he was doing yesterday? I think she can only be referring to the fact that Ava appeared with her cousins on Celebrity IOU yesterday. She wasn’t singled out as his daughter, but she was there in the crowd. If such a thing was banned during the court case in November then fine, but that TV program was filmed more than a year ago and any releases would have been signed way before the court case. So, I think she is very good at playing with words and knows her audience.
I feel like we’re conflating our dislike for Renner (which is admittedly well-deserved) with a financial recordkeeping issue. He may be the worst person on earth, but if they have a legal agreement with respect to child support AND a trust for their child, both parties should honor it. She doesn’t get a pass on that just because he’s a trash heap of a human.
I feel terrible for their daughter, who is clearly being weaponized by both of them to hurt one another.
Totally agree. Both things can be true. He can be a garbage human and she can be fiscally irresponsible. Neither is okay. It’s shocking to me that she admitted to taking those funds and felt she was entitled to them. That blows my mind.
Totally agree. Both things can be true. He can be a garbage human and she can be fiscally irresponsible. Neither is okay. It’s shocking to me that she admitted to taking those funds and felt she was entitled to them. That blows my mind.
He needs facial hair. Desperately.
None of this would have happened if he hadn’t taken down the Jeremy Renner App!
No one that I’ve read is mentioning that child support from one parent is meant to cover 50% of the child’s needs. The other 50% of costs for the child are meant to be met by the other parent. That’s the basic equation. Then there’s spousal support, which is meant to support the spouse because she’s an at home mum…meaning ultimately, in this case, that the spousal support is also child support. If the parent is spending all the spousal support money on lawyers, then needing access to (all) the child support is a no-brainer, is it not? My spouse was meant to pay $500 per month child support. It came so sporadically, I offered to reduce the amount to $300 if it would come regularly and be dependable. He took the reduction, still came sporadically, then, not at all-all within 7 months of him leaving. I supported our son and myself from the time he was 20 months till he was grown. I’m not clear this woman has the skills to support herself and her child, but isn’t Renner shooting himself in the foot here, by dragging her through the courts over and over? I don’t get it….but I deeply suspect this isn’t about the child at all, this is about him and his control issues. I really liked him in The Bourne Legacy, so this bums me out bigly.
Well, not exactly. It depends on the state and it also depends on the financial situation of both parents. It’s not like they designate a child’s needs at $60,000 and determined Rennet pay $30,000 because that’s half. Sonni doesn’t work outside of the home, nor does she seem to have significant assets to speak of. Either way, child support is not intended for attorneys/legal fees and certainly the trust fund is not. Taking money from a trust fund that belongs to your child is the same as stealing from them, it’s not Sonni’s to access or to take from.
and if you look at the filings…he isn’t the one dragging her to court.
I can’t believe the more they are rich the more they are stingy ass**les!
I’ve always gotten the feeling that both Renner and Sonni are shady, spiteful people. I hope the daughter has a court appointed advocate or someone looking after her. I went through a divorce in my twenties (no kids, just a house a dogs) and holy shit did things get ugly fast! There was no real money or alimony involved at all but my ex (Who was the one that wanted to end the marriage to be with someone else) tried to get anything he could. I finally paid him a few thousand dollars just to go the fuck away. So part of me completely understands how Money and a child can really bring out the worst in people.
It’s interesting to me that each time she’s taken money, she’s told the lawyers what she did, how much, and what it’s being used for, down to cents.
I would like to know more about what this fight is costing her and if her lawyers are encouraging all of these filings to bleed her much like he’s bleeding her with his filings and responses.
People really need to be more careful who they have kids with. This entire thing could be its own miniseries on Netflix. The cheap and dramatic kind. The thing is, Ava knows and I would bet a month’s salary that she is going to have massive issues relating to her parents.
Not everybody should procreate.
I’m not going to say much because I’m admittedly biased but I do have to say one thing, I actually know Jeremey through my former job and I’ve met his daughter sooooo many times times. She is just the sweetest and happiest little thing. She loves to talk to you and share whatever is going on in her life. I’ve seen her interact with her father a lot and she adores him. That man is her hero. I’ve never seen her afraid of him or even nervous around him and he is extremely protective of her.
Aww sweet girl. That makes me happy. I hope she’s doing okay, and I hope they’re doing a good job of keeping her out of it.
That is good to hear. I doesn’t surprise me though because he has posted a couple of videos since look down started and she comes across exactly as you describe. On one he is playing the DJ whist she has a roller disco around him and in the other they are playing dolls together. I have also seen a recent video filmed by her mum and she seems equally happy and outgoing there. This hatred they have for each other needs to stop, because it is going to hurt the child eventually.
Oh they definitely hate each other. When his daughter wasn’t with him he would unload occasionally about her. There is hate there, but to his credit I’ve never heard him do that in front of his daughter. Also despite what everyone here thinks, he’s actually a really nice guy. I would say he’s almost shy. It takes a little bit for him to open up to you but once he does, he’s incredibly kind and has a great sense of humor.
I am so glad to see your comments because he does seem to be a genuine person and we all get messy when not on good terms with someone.
So this Sonni lady clearly misuses the money that is for her child. The courts have not once proved any of the accusations Sonni throws out there to be true.
Jeremy Renner seems like a mess but so does his ex. Hopefully their daughter is happy since this is all that matters.
ETA: I don’t really think his reply in a court of law is abusive behavior when there must be a rebuttal to the baseless accusations from the other side. All in all as most recognize, being a jerk and being a good parent are not mutually exclusive.
A little bit different scenario butt same premise. When I was growing up it was a family up the street where it was known and everyone felt so bad because the father was a drunk.
Their financial difficulties and that sort of thing was always blamed on well the dad drinks.
Well when I was older and the mom took off and left her family we learned she was the drinker.
Turns out he was going to work every day and earned the money and they didn’t have anything because the mom spent it on the booze.
He took the hit to save the mom’s reputation and spare the kids being made fun of.
Just saying that sometimes things are totally not what they seem. We were all including my parents were caught off-guard when the truth came out
This is her trust fund not child support. So I fail to see how this is financial abuse.
I’m not a huge fan of Renner but this seems like a move to protect his daughter’s financial future. Her trust fund shouldn’t be touched by either parent.
Sonni gets enough child support to pay for presents and goody bags.
obviously the only winners here are the attorneys. single unemployed women are the most vulnerable financially after a divorce.
i’m a family law lawyer in ca. child support is calculated according to a formula. at its most basic, the formula has 3 factors: (1) mom’s income, (2) dad’s income, and (3) the custodial timeshare. the more time you have with a child, the less child support you pay. that’s based on the assumption that the more the child is in your care, the more costs you incur, and the less you are able to work because you’re engaged in childcare.
so, while child support is theory belongs to the child (which is why a parent cannot waive child support absent a showing that the child’s needs will be met), it is up to the receiving parent to determine how best to spend it, based on all of the needs of the family. the paying parent does not get to set limits on what the money is spent on.
i know it pisses off a lot of paying parents (primarily dads) who think that its somehow so unfair that their child support payment might be used by mom to get her nails done or something, but guess what, that’s how it works. because while the receiving parent is waiting for them to send the check, they’re shouldering all the costs on a daily basis. it generally equals out, in the end. if the receiving parent is starving the child and sending the child out in rags while spending 100% of the child support on plastic surgery and clothes for herself, a court (likely dependency court) would intervene because that’s a form of child abuse (neglect). but if the child is well cared for, and the receiving parent spends some of the child support check on personal things, well, guess what, there’s nothing legally wrong with that.
basically, fuck off jeremy renner
that being said, the trust fund issue is kind of separate. she’s in the right to use the child support payments however she wants. but there are a whole different set of rules that apply to a trust fund, and not knowing the terms of the trust, i don’t think we can say whether sonni’s done anything wrong, but we also can’t say that her actions are definitely ok under the terms of the trust either
But if, as claimed, there was a court order in place stipulating what the trust fund could be used for, is she in legal danger? It seems she admitted it and justied it by saying legal fees had drained her finances. Since she was getting up to $356k a year, doesn’t that justification become less persuasive if she spent the money on herself, bearing in mind that it is 200k above her basic child support. If she is spending more than 200k a year on legal fees OK, but if it is half that and she still used the trust fund isn’t he intitled to question how she is using the child support? Because if she can’t cover housing costs then she isn’t providing the base level of care with the money.
My heart goes out to Ava. That poor girl is going to need therapy when she grows up. I hope somehow she ends up having a lot of postive people in her circle. None of this is her fault.